And with uplifted arms is safe arrived
At Ravenspurg,
and before the end of July was at the head of a large army in the wolds of Worcestershire. It was not until towns and castles had been yielded to the invader that the King received intelligence of the insurrection, for the winds had been contrary, and by the time he landed at Milford the revolution was virtually accomplished. Ill news does not always travel apace, and in these days, when the trembling wire speeds the message through air and sea, it seems difficult to realise the thought of a rebellion stalking through England unchecked for weeks without the news reaching in the sister isle him whom it most immediately concerned. On reaching England, Richard started for Chester, where he had many friends and his power was strongest. At Flint he was delivered by the perfidious Percy into the hands of Bolingbroke, thence he was taken to Chester, and afterwards conveyed to London and lodged in the Tower, when, after having resigned the crown, he was formally deposed—an act that was followed by his removal to Pontefract, where, according to common report, he was murdered by Sir Piers Exton and his assistants, though it is more likely he was allowed to perish of starvation.
Whether Fitton was one of those who hastened to pay court to the usurper, and in a bad game elected to adhere to the winning side, is not clear, but he must have quickly accommodated himself to the changed state of affairs, and to have gained the confidence of Bolingbroke—“King Henry of that name the Fourth.”
Scarcely was Richard dead when a great revulsion in public feeling occurred, old hatreds and jealousies were revived, and those who had clamoured most for his death now exclaimed—
Oh, earth, yield us that King again,
And take thou this;
and the usurping Henry, who had dreamed only of the throne as a bed of roses, found himself between the fell spectres conscience and insatiate treason. In Wales, where Richard had possessed a strong attachment, Owen Glendower raised the standard of revolt, renounced allegiance to the King, and claimed to be the rightful Prince of Wales, when he was joined by young Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the famous ballad of Chevy Chase. To meet this new danger, Prince Henry, Falstaff’s Prince Hal—“the nimble-footed mad-cap Harry, Prince of Wales,” who was also Earl of Chester, and lived much in the county, joined his forces to those of his father, and on the 11th January, 1403–4, we find him directing a writ to Sir Lawrence Fitton, requiring him to repair “to his possessions on the marches of Wales, there to make defence against the coming of Owen Glendower, according to an order in Council enacting that, on the occasion of the war being moved against the King, all those holding possessions on the marches should reside on the same for the defence of the realm,” and the Recognizance Rolls show that a few days later the Lord of Gawsworth was appointed on a commission “to inquire touching those who spread false rumours to the disquiet of the people of the county of Chester, and disturbance of the peace therein, also to array all the fencible men of the hundred of Macclesfield.”
In 1416, when, after the victory at Agincourt, Henry V. was preparing for his second expedition to France, with the design of claiming the crown, Sir Lawrence Fitton, with Sir John Savage, Knight, Robert de Hyde, Robert de Dokenfield, and John, the son of Peter de Legh, was appointed collector of the subsidy in the Macclesfield hundred, part of the 3,000 marks granted to the King by the county of Chester; and in 1428, with other influential Cheshire knights and gentry, he was summoned to the King’s Council at Chester, with regard to the granting of a subsidy to the King (Henry VI.) His death occurred on the 16th March, 1457, when he must have been over 80 years of age, and his inquisition was taken 37 Henry VI. (1459), when his grandson Thomas, then aged 26, was found to be his next heir. As previously stated, he had to wife Agnes Hesketh. This lady died in 1422, and he would appear to have re-married, for in the inquisition taken after his death mention is made of “Clemencia, his wife,” who is said to be then alive.
During his long life a movement was taking place in the Church which brought about a great change in religious thought and action, and in which Wycliffe, the rector of Lutterworth, may be said to have been the chief actor. The rapacity of the monks was securing or had secured for themselves the larger portion of the livings of the country, the parishes being handed over to the spiritual care of vicars, with the small tithes as a miserable stipend. In this manner the rich rectory of Prestbury had been appropriated to the Abbey of St. Werburg, Chester; and possibly it was this circumstance, as much as his own personal convenience, which induced Caxton, acting under the influence of his patron, the father of Sir Lawrence Fitton, to seek to detach the chapel of Gawsworth from the mother church of Prestbury. Having accomplished this, Sir Lawrence Fitton would seem to have set about the erection of a building more suited to its increased importance as a parish church, and an examination of the building points to the conclusion that the greater portion of the fabric was erected during his lifetime, as evidenced by the architectural details of the building, as well as by the shields of arms displayed on different parts of the tower, representing the alliances of the family, the latest impalement being the coat of Mainwaring, intended to commemorate the marriage of his son Thomas with Ellen, daughter of Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, which would seem to fix the date between the years 1420 and 1430, and not in the reign of Edward III., as generally supposed. In the Cheshire Church Notes, taken in 1592, there is preserved an account of a window to the memory of Sir Lawrence Fitton and his wife, which formerly existed in the church at Gawsworth. He is represented as in armour, and kneeling with his wife before desks in the attitude of devotion; on his surcoat were displayed the arms of Fitton, and on the lady’s mantle those of Hesketh; behind the knight were eight sons, and in rear of the lady four daughters, and underneath the inscription, “Orate pro bono statu Laurencii ffitton milit’ et Agnet’ uxor ejus cum pueris suis.”